Online Reporter
Wallace Ruzvidzo
Herald Reporter
THE 7th SADC Industrialisation Week held in Zimbabwe last year continues to bear fruit as one of the participants, Chilmund Chemicals, which supplies water treatment chemical aluminium sulphate, has begun exports to Mozambique and Zambia.
This development dovetails with President Mnangagwa’s directive for the country to move from being perennial importers to net exporters of goods and services.
Chilmund Chemicals director for business development Mr Nicholas Bhero said the company had managed to penetrate markets in the region.
“So, what happened is we participated in the SADC Industrialisation Week last year in August, when we were hosting it here in Harare,” he said.
“So, we managed to then engage with countries that were participating, and I am glad that we participated in a tender from Mozambique and also Zambia.
“This year in February, we got our first contract from Mozambique, so we are now exporting into Mozambique and Zambia,” he said.
Mr Bhero said the company was targeting to supply to two more countries in the region to make them four by the end of the year.
Chilmund already supplies aluminium sulphate to Zimbabwean local authorities. Aluminium sulphate is used as a coagulant to deposit fine particles and so clarify the water and is one of the main water treatment chemicals.
The company’s plant in Bindura, Mashonaland Central, boasts a first-of-its-kind technology in Africa and has the capacity of producing 7 200 tonnes of aluminium sulphate per month, against a local demand of between 1 700 and 2 000 tonnes, leaving a lot of capacity that can be used in export.
“…and this has happened within two years since we started manufacturing,” Mr Bhero said.
“We also have got some interesting leads from within the region and we are hoping that by the end of the year, maybe we will be exporting into four countries since we have the capacity to serve the entire region.”
The company currently employs 108 workers and is also actively involved in skills and technology transfer, which is in tandem with the Second Republic’s stance on development.
Harare City Council and Kwekwe City Council are among the company’s biggest customers.
“As Chilmund Chemicals, we started manufacturing on July 1, 2023, and our plant was officially commissioned by His Excellency the President on October 30 of the same year,” he said.
“When we started, we were only supplying one local authority and remember that time we had a lot of erratic supplies of aluminium sulphate within the local authorities. But since we came into the market, that issue is now a thing of the past”.
Since coming into play, Mr Bhero said, the country had never been short of aluminium sulphate.
“When we were importing (as a country), there used to be serious challenges because you would go to the local authorities and they did not have the product because of supply chain disruptions,” he said.
